Spirit:
Stallion of the Cimarron
by
Mark
Netter

The first thing that strikes you about Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, the new DreamWorks SKG animation film, is the awesome sense of freedom. We follow behind a bald eagle, loaded symbol of Americana, as it soars through what appears to be the Grand Canyon, and on and on. As the two-year-old I saw the movie with said, "Whoa."

The eagle's flight turns what might have been just an opening montage into a beautifully stitched together shot that manages to suggest the sweep of time as well as landscape, and makes overt reference to the first landmark animated movie about four-legged creatures, Walt Disney's Bambi. Spirit has no less appreciation for the movement of its central characters, in this case the wild mustangs that once roamed free across the American West, and their powerful physicality is nearly balanced enough for the sweeping 3D modeled backgrounds, themselves reminiscent of John Ford's Monument Valley, among other archetypical landscapes. I kept thinking, "I've got to got there," until realizing that "there" is only in the imagination, although beautifully evoked.

Yet what is most striking about Spirit is in the content. For anyone who has grown up with the Hollywood version of the Old West, typically less than critical of the spread of the white nation, particularly when delivered to youngsters, there is something dissonant going on here. For when the horse of the title is delivered to a cavalry outpost, his loss of freedom is marked by an American flag, center screen, as he is dragged into captivity. Freedom is the main theme of Spirit, with a sort of adolescent coming-of-age story woven in somewhere, and the main enemy of freedom appears to be our good ol' U. S. of A.

Much has been made of the film's eschewing of talking (or singing) animals. Although we do get Matt Damon's squeaky clean voiceover as Spirit to get us over some narrative humps, it is a welcome change from the usual practice, and enables some of the more subversive moments to pass without being too obviously, well, subversive. Very soon into the picture we see the birth of Spirit. While not exactly explicit, we do see the foal appearing from around his mother's backside while obvious squeezing is going on. From there we get the nursing, with Spirit's head disappearing between the mare's legs and re-emerging wet with milk. It seems like relatively new ground for an animated movie aimed at children. The frankness is both disarmingly welcome and a harbinger of greater honesty to come.

It is evident from early on that Spirit the horse is a surrogate for Native America, a symbol made literal with the arrival of a Lakota teen, Little Creek, voiced by Daniel Studi, son of noted Cherokee actor Wes Studi. The two share the bond of incarceration by the cavalry, with James Cromwell in the heavy role as a colonel. As the relationship of horse and boy develops, through shared escape and subsequent attempts to domesticate Spirit the Native American way, the movie moves into Dances with Wolves territory, the most shocking scene of all being a cavalry raid on a peaceful Indian village. While the screen is thankfully not awash with blood (lest parents feel the need to get their two-year-olds out of the theater, pronto), it is likely to be the first encounter with the other side of American history for many children, and will hopefully lead to some discussion and possible recognition later on. (Think of it as "My First Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.")

For anyone who has read that account (or any others) of the wholesale destruction of the Indian nation by European settlers, a certain tension grows as the last act unfolds. Clearly written with a conscience (by John Fusco, known for the revisionist Westerns Young Guns and Thunderheart), it seems impossible to end such a saga on any note of uplift, not with the knowledge that there will be no such uplift for Little Creek and his people.

Without spoiling the resolution, suffice it to say that Spirit squarely endorses industrial sabotage in the name of freedom and environmental preservation, allows horses to have what human may not, and then returns to the image of the soaring eagle. In the context of the juvenile animated feature, it is all too disconcerting to contemplate what this majestic and lonely figure now signifies, after all we have seen and all that has been alluded to by the story.

Some may sneer and call Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron another sacrifice to the gods of "political correctness," but hopefully it will find its place as a welcome, if unruly, antidote to the sort of dominant view that has traditionally held sway in American cinema in the guise of "apolitical" storytelling. And isn't that something to admire, even be proud of in DreamWorks' latest animated feature, to go along with the breathtaking visuals?

"Whoa," indeed.

©2002 Mark Netter
CineScene